In the last corner, politics was the subject. They were denigrating the Charter of Louis XVIII. Combeferre defended it mildly, Courfeyrac was energetically battering it. On the table was an unfortunate copy of the famous Touquet Charter. Courfeyrac grabbed it and shook it, mingling with his arguments the rustling of that sheet of paper.

“First, I want no kings. If it were only from the economic point of view, I don’t want them; a king is a parasite. You don’t have kings gratis. Listen to this: cost of kings. At the death of Francis I, the public debt of France was thirty thousand livres; at the death of Louis XIV, it was two million six hundred thousand at twenty-eight livres the mark, which in 1760, was equivalent according to Desmarest, to four billion five hundred million, and which is equivalent today to twelve billion. Secondly, no offense to Combeferre, a charter granted is a vicious expedient of civilisation. To avoid the transition, to smooth the passage, to deaden the shock, to make the nation move unawares from monarchy to democracy by the practice of constitutional fictions, these are all detestable arguments! No! No! Never give the people a false light. Principles wither and grow pale in your constitutional cellar. No half measures, no compromises, no grant from the king to the people. In all these grants, there is an Article 14. Along with the hand that gives there is the claw that takes back. I wholly refuse your charter. A charter is a mask; the lie is under it. A people who accept a charter, abdicate. Right is right only when entire. No! No charter!

It was winter; two logs were cracking in the fireplace. It was tempting, and Courfeyrac could not resist. He crushed the poor Touquet Charter in his hand and threw it into the fire. The paper blazed up. Combeferre looked philosophically at the burning of Louis XVIII’s master-piece, and contended himself by saying; “The charter metamorphosed in flames.”